Friday, September 07, 2007

Radio 1: as it is IV

Scott Mills, 4pm-7pm

Judging by the 'wake up with Moyles, go home with Mills' trailers, Radio 1 are grooming Scott Mills as the next breakfast show host, being Moyles' holiday cover and like him having started at the station on early mornings and taken over Kevin Greening's role as the regular supply DJ. This is interesting, as among the four daytime DJs he's probably the one with the least profile among non-listeners, so much so that you might be able to get away with putting any late 20/early 30 year old with slicked back hair on telly and claiming it's him, although he's cameod on Casualty playing a reporter and done the midweek lottery show. It's also telling that Radio 1 now see drivetime as a personality-led format after years and years of the music first approach. This does, however, mean wind-up phone calls.

Hard-Fi - Suburban KnightsAmy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their OwnThe Enemy - You're Not AloneAlright, to be honest, Scott's on holiday this week, although Mark Chapman, occasional stand-in DJ and erstwhile sports presenter currently stinking up the place along with the rest of Five's Italian football coverage, is hosting Scott Mills Gold in his stead. Pause to consider that prospect, and move on. It turns out Chapman's gag of announcing that Mills is in fact dead has somehow backfired and newspapers and magazines have been receiving enquiries to that end, and indeed it's been reported in the French broadcast press. Again, we can learn far more from this than any focus group about the makeup of the modern daytime Radio 1 listener. Chapman ends up lapsing into a Michelle of the Resistance impression.Mason vs Princess Superstar - Perfect (Exceeder)Chapman points out Mills is hosting the Lottery that night, which given it's all fairly clearly recorded apart from the balls isn't much help. Then he starts playing stupid and/or inaudible noises, but not what he only describes as the "brown noise" as apparently it "sets things off in another building". Blimey.Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & DOE - The Way I Are Milburn - What Will You DoA clip of Mills playing the "shopping trolley noise", which appears to work on the same level as some of Danny Baker's visual-based phone-ins without the accompaniment of a middle aged man trying to work in a Wodehouse reference between surprised gasps. Say someone had emigrated twenty years ago, has just returned to the homeland and decided to test the temperature of UK pop culture nowadays by listening to Radio 1 at this very point...Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone (which still doesn't sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Interpol, rockists)NewsThe Twang - Two LoversBooty Luv - Don't Mess With My ManChapman tells a story involving builders and face masks which doesn't seem to have affected anyone or anythingBedouin Soundclash - When The Night Feels My SongMills Gold, featuring some sort of testing of the limits of sick humour, or at least as much of them that can be broached during the school run. Those parameters have surely already been stretched like a cheap metal spring by Moyles, of course. Most of the studio somewhat ruins it by going at the placename 'Bangkok'.Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms RaceKT Tunstall - Hold On (Live Lounge)NewsMaroon 5 - Wake Up CallJust Jack - Starz In Their EyesChapman points out that this has been used as backing on the X-Factor. In case we don't get the irony, he then explains what the song is about just to hammer the point home.Interpol - MammothA 'celebrity call' with Zippy from Rainbow 'ringing' a publishers. Basically it's a load of clips and someone apparently gullible enough to think this waste of two minutes of their life is worth persevering with. At least when Noel Edmonds was doing it there was something more to it.Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls Keane - Is It Any WonderRihanna - Shut Up And Drive (were the lyrics written by Max Power staffers?)Marcus from Big Brother impressions! Marcus from Big Brother impressions!Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing"Steven Gerrard says 'eat sweets, be good at football'!" Mills Gold with Scott's ten year old World Cup expert. Hilarity almost ensues, if not when Mills affects not to be able to pronounce Oswestry.Gym Class Heroes - Clothes Off (god, not again. Lil Chris has just covered this too, curiously, and Clea released a cover not too long ago, which is three more people than you ever thought cared about it to begin with)NewsbeatKaiser Chiefs - The Angry MobChemical Brothers - Galvanise ("haven't heard that for a while" Chappers says, which was very much not the case when it was out)Girls Aloud - Sexy! No No NoSam in his combine harvester texts in. Progression throughout the day, see. Meanwhile from the archive Bruce Forsyth 'calls' someoneJustin Timberlake - My LoveStereophonics - It Means Nothing (it's alright, they've not progressed)Akon - I Wanna Love YouDavid Guetta feat. Chris Willis - Love Is Gone Entertainment news, which is even less consequential than the earlier oneDeep Dish - FlashdanceEditors - An End Has A StartMills Gold? Some sort of sexually related truth game also involving, inevitably, Colin Murray ends up with everyone else in the studio telling about Spoony's penis. No wonder he left the station. Murray inadvertedly rescues the morass with a reference to Greta Garbo, although fails to follow up with the required Peter Cook impression.Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah Freaks - The Creeps (how evidently have the 'attitudional' vocals been shoehorned over the top of the instrumental? Yer Mam! have posted about the original)Maximo Park - Girls Who Play GuitarsWell, what was that? Mills' style seems stuck between Drivetime Crew Heart FM (his previous employer) and post-Moylesisms, the fate awaiting any man now who comes to Radio 1 boasting a personality. Perhaps this dual stool-falling is why Mills has yet to make much of a cultural impact outside the station - what is he, then? What does he specialise in? New music's five hour stand tomorrow.